Ana tells Camila about the flashing success of early Japanese smartphone tech. The girls discuss how the Japanese tech giants of the '90s and early '00s created exceedingly advanced and snazzy smartphone features and how such phones warranted the creation of the "second internet”. Circling the debate around Japan’s “economic miracle”, they talk about the politics and interrelation with the US that came after WW2.

Join us over at Patreon for more tech chats! www.patreon.com/OurFriendtheComputer
And follow us on Instagram @ourfriendthecomputer and Twitter @OurFriendComp 

Main research was done by Ana.  Audio editing by Ana.
Music by Nelson Guay (SoundCloud: fluxlinkages).
Interstitial sounds from the Media Archaeology Lab.
OFtC is a sister project of the Media Archaeology Lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

References -
World Top 20 Companies by Market Capitalization in 1989 and 2019: https://www.funalysis.net/economy-times-are-changing-world-top-20-companies-by-market-capitalization-in-1989-and-2019
The rise & fall of Japanese phone giants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voyuy1rySX4
The Origin and Spread of Mobile Phones: https://web-japan.org/kidsweb/hitech/mobile/mobile01.html
You can send email from payphones in Japan?!? We try the technology trick that shocked the nation: https://soranews24.com/2019/10/31/you-can-send-email-from-payphones-in-japan-we-try-the-technology-trick-that-shocked-the-nation/
NTT history: https://www.global.ntt/our-history.html
Sharp's awesome-looking Aquos 912SH TV-phone: https://www.techdigest.tv/2007/05/sharps_awesomel.html

We’re back chatting about the early 2000s Nokia “Fashion Phones”! These phones preferenced a positioning of mobile phones as a fashion accessory, or fashion statement, over technological functionality. Following from the first two episodes of the season, Ana and Camila discuss gendered product design and marketing, aesthetic obsolescence, what “retro” really means, and why Nokia may have had an interest in creating these “experimental” designs in the first place.

Join us over at Patreon!
Follow us on Twitter @OurFriendComp And Instagram @ourfriendthecomputer

Main research was done by Camila.  Audio editing by Ana.
Music by Nelson Guay (SoundCloud: fluxlinkages).
Interstitial sounds from the Media Archaeology Lab.
OFtC is a sister project of the Media Archaeology Lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

References:
- Nokia “Distinctly Bold” Campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG1JDYUrBUM
- Bramston, Dave, “Basics product design: Idea Searching”, 2008, Bloomsbury Academic
- De Giovanni, Pietro, “Cases of Circular Economy in Practice”, 2022, IGI Global
- Hjorth, Larissa, “Mobile media in the Asia Pacific : gender and the art of being mobile”, Routledge, 2009
- Katz, James E.  and Sugiyama, Satomi, “Mobile Phones as Fashion Statements: The Co-creation of Mobile Communication’s Public Meaning”, 2005
- Shade, Leslie Regan, “Feminizing the Mobile: Gender Scripting of Mobiles in North America”, Continuum, 21:2, 2007, pp. 179-189
- https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/nokia-7380
- https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/nokia-7280
- https://www.theregister.com/2006/09/05/nokia_l_amour_collection/ 

Although telephones were instated into the home as a business communication tool, the women of the house soon appropriated the technology for “sociability” - checking in with family and friends, gossiping, chatting and connecting with the community. Ana and Camila aptly chit-chat about how this phenomenon became so pronounced over the years that it shaped the evolution of phones and outlined the ways in which we use phones now.

Join us over at Patreon and follow us on Twitter @OurFriendComp And Instagram @ourfriendthecomputer

Main research and audio editing was done by Ana. Music by Nelson Guay (SoundCloud: fluxlinkages)
OFtC is a sister project of the Media Archaeology Lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

References:
Fisher, C. S. 1992. America calling: A social history of the telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hanson, E. 1995. The telephone and its queerness. In Cruising the performative: Interventions into the representation of ethnicity, na­ tionality, and sexuality, edited by E. A. Case. Bloomington: Indi­ ana University Press.

Moyal, A. 1992. The gendered use of the telephone: An Australian case study. Media, Culture, and Socieh J 14:51-72.

O'Keefe, G., and Sulanowski, B.1995. More than just talk: Uses, gratifications, and the telephone. Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly 72(4):922-933.

Rakow, L. 1992. Gender on the line: Women, the telephone, and community life. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Arafeh, S. 2000. Chapter Five: Women, Telephones, and Subtle Solidarity: A Counternarrative. Counterpoints Journal. Peter Lang AG. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42976096?read-now=1&seq=26#page_scan_tab_contents

Retrowow. 80s mobile phones. https://www.retrowow.co.uk/retro_collectibles/80s/mobile_phone.html#:~:text=The 8500X had an alphabetic,than the 8000X and 8000S.

Sallyedelstein. 2015. The Telephone and the Housewife. Envisioning The American Dream https://envisioningtheamericandream.com/2015/12/22/the-telephone-and-the-housewife/